Dr. Jim Taylor’s blog

When I was growing up, my world was filled with heroes. There were John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., and Carl Yastrzemski. These icons represented everything good about America: strong, principled, humble, and decent. They led exemplary lives, worked hard, and cared about the world in which they lived. As an impressionable boy, I saw them regularly on television and read about them in magazines and newspapers, and, because of their iconic status, I looked up to them, I wanted to be them. Our country was replete with politicians, titans of business, civic leaders, athletes, and entertainers who I could have said, “I want to grow up to be just like them.” And, even in retrospect, they seemed like role models worthy of my emulation.

But in 21^st century America, I ask myself: Where have all our heroes gone? I look at the iconic figures of today, the influential people that our children see on television and in the movies, and read about in magazines and newspapers and on the Internet, and I have a hard time finding anyone whom I can call a hero. Many people today see those in the spotlight as far from heroic: politicians are self-glorifying panderers, corporate leaders are greedy and corrupt, athletes are entitled and irresponsible, and entertainers are spoiled and aloof. There are exceptions, of course, but they rarely get the attention they’re due. There just aren’t many people in the public eye these day for whom I can say, “I would like my children to grow up to be just like them.”

Yet heroes are essential to children’s development. They convey the values that reflect the best that society has to offer. They influence the choices children make-what would my hero do in this situation? And heroes act as role models, shaping children through their words and deeds. Charles Barkley, the former NBA star, once famously said, “I am not a role model.” But he, and others like him, are role models whether they like it or not.

The heroes that emerge in a generation are the living manifestation of the zeitgeist of the times. In past generations, children’s heroes were mostly agents of good-of course, every generation has antiheroes, but they were the exception rather than the rule (remember James Dean and KISS). They inspired children to goodness and great deeds. Heroes were courageous and strong and helped children to be brave when facing their fears. They set the bar high on standards of behavior, being kind, compassionate, generous, and humble-you never saw Superman trash talking the villains. Heroes gave hope to children when they were worried because kids believed that there was someone out there who could protect them. Most importantly, heroes always did the right thing; they protected the weak, vanquished evil, and set things right.

Today’s zeitgeist is vastly different, controlled by a popular culture that worships the antihero. Many of today’s entertainers, athletes, and other popular culture icons exemplify everything that is unheroic in our society-50 Cent and Britney Spears, Terrell Owens, Paris Hilton and Russell Crowe-yet are seen as heroes in the eyes of children. Many of today’s heroes encourage values that are also unheroic, such as selfishness, dishonesty, disrespect, irresponsibility, greed, cruelty, violence, and promiscuity. It seems like the best we can hope for these days are heroes that are at most benign rather than harmful. A survey I conducted recently with kids indicated that these “minimal damage” heroes include Hilary Duff, Brad Pitt, and Shaquille O’Neal. Not antiheroes by any means, but also not genuine heroes either. They’re heroes to children mainly because they’re attractive, rich, and famous, not for any redeeming qualities they may have.

So where can we find real heroes for our children today? You might argue that kids’ heroes should be their parents, teachers, coaches, and other adults in their lives. And I agree wholeheartedly. But that is rarely the case, particularly as the influence of popular culture on children grows. These everyday people are far too ordinary and too close to children to be their heroes. Kids need to place their heroes on pedestals. That’s what gives heroes their power-they’re somehow different from ordinary mortals-and causes children to want to emulate them. And there are genuine heroes out there, for example, the police and firefighters who died on 9/11 and the soldiers who are fighting in Iraq. Unfortunately, their time in the spotlight is too short to remain heroes. As children’s attention is drawn elsewhere and the memory of their heroics fades, so does their influence as heroes.

Because popular culture won’t shine a steady spotlight on real heroes, parents must make children aware of people who are actually deserving of their admiration. Parents need to talk to their children about what makes a hero and, in doing so, teach them about the values and beliefs that are exemplified by real heroes. Just as importantly, parents must learn who are the antiheroes being pushed on their children by popular culture and explain why they’re actually unheroic. Believe it or not, there are real heroes out there; politicians, business and civic leaders, athletes, and entertainers-Nelson Mandela, Geoffrey Canada, Roger Federer, Bono-who actually embody the best of what the world represents and they have to be kept in children’s field of vision by parents so they can be seen for the real heroes that they are.

What attracts millions of Americans each week to this cultural phenomenon known as “reality TV?” Where did the purveyors of shows such as Survivor, The Apprentice, and American Idol, get the idea, and why do we buy into the idea that reality TV resembles reality in any way, shape, or form? Only in George Orwell’s 1984 reality can people be watched every moment of the day like on Big Brother. Only in William Gerald Golding’s Lord of the Flies reality can people “eliminate” one another on a desert island like on Survivor. Only in Ira Levin’s The Stepford Wives reality are all of the women young, white, attractive, and slim like on The Bachelor. Only in Andy Warhol’s “fifteen minutes” reality do people whose only claim is that they won a reality TV show make them worthy of the fame and fortune of talk show appearances, book contracts, and speaking tours. Yet this is the “reality” of reality TV to which we are exposed and it is the reality that some of us may come to believe can be our reality.

Reality TV promotes the worst values and qualities in people-and disguises them all as entertainment. Reality TV has made the Seven Deadly Sins-pride, avarice, envy, wrath, lust, gluttony, and sloth-attributes to be admired. Throw in selfishness, deceit, spite, and vengeance-all qualities seen routinely on reality TV-and you have the personification of the worst kind of person on Earth. Reality TV makes heroic decidedly unheroic values, characters, and behavior.

Why would popular culture want to communicate such destructive values, you may ask. The answer is, because our pop culture has no values; it’s amoral. It doesn’t care about us and it has no sense of social responsibility. Popular culture is concerned with only one thing: money, and it will do everything and sacrifice anything to achieve that end, including hurting the society it is meant to serve.

The messages that American popular culture sends us about success and failure-as communicated through the unreality of “reality” TV-are particularly destructive. Success, as defined by our culture and conveyed through reality TV-wealth and fame, most notably-is so revered, yet, in the reality in which most of us live, so utterly unattainable. We get the message from reality TV that we must become successful at any cost, even if success can be achieved only by dishonesty and subterfuge. The unfortunate results of these messages can be found throughout our culture. We see increased cheating in schools, the use of performance-enhancing drugs in sports, and criminal behavior in our youth and, among our adult population, lying on resumes, frivolous, profit-driven law suits, and corporate greed. Anything to become a success!

There is no worse fate in our culture than to be labeled a failure, yet, so narrowly defined by our culture (not being wealthy, famous, powerful, or beautiful), it is almost a certainty for most of us. Failure alone though is not punishment enough for the “losers” in reality TV. They must also be demeaned, dehumanized, and publicly humiliated. These losers must suffer the indignity of banishment from reality TV shows by hosts, such as the cold, yet venerated, Donald Trump-”You’re fired!” -and judges such as the mean-spirited Simon Cowell on American Idol. Despite this despicable behavior, we are encouraged to feel excitement and glee in seeing others suffer. As we cringe outwardly at the barbs that are thrown at the well-meaning contestants, we inwardly giggle in guilty pleasure at seeing them in pain. Most of our joy of reality TV is not in seeing contestants succeed, but rather in seeing them not only fail, but fail in the most humiliating ways. We celebrate every luscious moment of this depravity!

Why do so many of us not only watch reality TV, but become so consumed by it that there are Web sites, blogs, magazine and newspaper articles, and constant talk around the water cooler? One answer is vicarious stimulation. Reality TV is exciting when life is often mundane. It is interesting when life can be dull. Reality TV is dangerous when life can be all too secure. It is emotionally powerful-excitement, joy, embarrassment, shame-when life can be emotionally void.? And many of us want it that way because we are loath to take risks and feel so deeply in our own lives.

Reality TV has become the public executions of our times. We sit on the edge of our seats waiting eagerly for the guillotine to fall, yet we don’t want the end to come too quickly. We want to savor the lingering death of humiliation and shame. And when the “execution” finally occurs, we feel conflicted in enjoying others’ “deaths,” yet relief in our continued existences, guilty for the exhilaration we feel, yet giddy in knowing that we are a “survivor” of our own reality show called life. In these times of economic and global uncertainty, thanks to the contestants’ symbolic deaths on reality TV, we can return to our lives feeling somehow better, safer…that we are going to be okay.